PNP fingerprints system to be updated

By Cecille Suerte Felipe, The Philippine Star

MANILA, Philippines - The Automated Fingerprints Identification System (AFIS) of the Philippine National Police (PNP) will be upgraded to purge the government of unscrupulous personnel.

PNP chief Director General Alan Purisima said Interior and Local Government Secretary Manuel Roxas II will be asked to lead the coordination with other government agencies like the Department of Justice and the Department of National Defense in implementing the program.

“In light of emerging crime incidents involving uniformed personnel and other government agents as crime perpetrators, the PNP will implement the lifting of tenprints from all government employees and officers,” he said.

Purisima said police will secure the fingerprints of personnel from other agencies, including the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, Bureau of Fire Protection, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, Bureau of Customs, Armed Forces and local governments.

Authorities through the AFIS could then easily compare the latent prints of criminals lifted from the crime scene with those in the system’s database with just a click of a mouse of a computer, he added.

Purisima said the Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management under Chief Superintendent Francisco Don Montenegro had conceptualized the project which could cost P5.77 million.

Purisima said the program is also in line with the PNP’s policy of transparency, impartiality and objectivity.

Wayward government personalities would be easily identified with the highest degree of accuracy through the application of the scientific method that the AFIS would provide, he added.

Montenegro said the PNP has modern and scientific investigative tools, facilities and equipment for crime solution.

The PNP-AFIS database has tenprints of arrested persons, he added.

Montenegro said it would be ideal to also encode in the AFIS database tenprints of all Filipino citizens and foreigners residing in the country.